A Killing Winter

Chapter 52

The Chief recovered his composure with remarkable speed.

‘This won’t be a problem for you,’ he assured me. ‘A notorious criminal attempts to kill two senior police officers, pays the price, thanks to your speed and vigilance.’

I looked down at the corpse, saw the blowback from my final shot covering my hand, the sleeve and chest of my shirt, lukewarm and sticky on my bare skin, and I wanted to scrape and scour until no trace remained.

‘No need for an investigation,’ the Chief continued, ‘not with me as a witness. As long as we have our deal. Self-defence or a brutal killing, it’s your call.’

I nodded, as the adrenaline started to ebb, and the nausea kicked in. The room went dizzy for a few seconds, and I wondered if I was going to faint.

‘And the drugs?’ I asked.

‘A two-way split is better than a three-way, wouldn’t you say? Yours if you want, no problem. And plenty more in the future. It’s a repeat business.’

I started to wipe the worst of Kursan’s blood, brains and skull fragments off my hand, then gave it up as a bad job.

‘Not like dying, then,’ I said.

I put the Yarygin down on the desk. The Chief reached over, very slowly, and with one finger turned the barrel so that it was no longer pointing at his heart. I made a grab at the desk, before my legs decided they no longer belonged to me, and sat down.

‘Even if your scheme works, and the old crew come back, the Circle have you by the balls, don’t they?’

The Chief looked amused.

‘Not with a hard man at the top; we can wipe them out for good.’

I shook my head, my ears still ringing. The smell of Kursan’s guts and brains filled the room.

‘They’ve got too much on you, and once the krokodil starts biting, you’ll have no control. This won’t be a country any more, just somewhere to be robbed and raped and screwed for everything it has. And if it gets bad enough, maybe the Russians will come back. Then you and your bosses will be first up against the wall. Or maybe the Chinese will come over the Tien Shan Mountains, and you’ll find yourself kneeling in some sports stadium in Urumchi, screwing your face up against cold steel kissing the back of your neck.’

‘You’re too pessimistic, Inspector,’ the Chief said. ‘I can put you in touch with a very reliable and discreet company in the Middle East. Everything laundered better than your mother used to do your shirts. Five years from now, sunshine, a penthouse, a yacht, all the girls you can fuck, and no six-month winter. Works for me.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting one thing?’ I asked. ‘Saltanat?’

‘So there’s only one girl you want to fuck, well, I admire true love. Give me the tape, and I’ll give you the address.’

I shook my head, and took the tape out of my pocket again.

‘Call Sariev and call him off. I’m not giving this up for a dead woman.’

He took his mobile off his desk and dialled a number. He spoke for a couple of minutes, and then broke the connection.

‘I’ve told him to do nothing, to wait for us. She’s all right, a little bruised maybe from a couple of taps, but nothing that a few million dollars can’t cure.’

He reached out for the tape, and I handed it to him.

‘The address?’

‘First things first, we’re partners and that means we have to trust each other, da?’

I watched as he slid the unlabelled cassette from its case, broke the plastic shell open. He spooled the tape into the ashtray, and set fire to it. The shiny brown tape twisted and coiled and melted, the plastic stink overlaying the scent of blood.

‘Truth? Lies? A confession? Look where it all ends up, Inspector,’ he said, prodding at the charred remains, ‘Smoke on the air, uncatchable, untraceable.’

He sat back, reached for the bottle, saw that it was empty, and smiled.

‘I would have liked to make a toast to our new friendship,’ he said. ‘Maybe tonight, once that piece of shit on the floor has been scooped up and dealt with.’

I nodded.

‘You’ve made an interesting choice, Inspector,’ he continued, ‘the country you love or the girl you love. And you know, I don’t even think the money played a part in your decision. Maybe you’re a romantic, after all.’

‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but Murder Squad isn’t just about solving killings. It’s about preventing them in the future. You had Yekaterina Tynalieva turned into something from an abattoir. I didn’t want Saltanat to join her on one of Usupov’s trays.’

‘I did what was necessary. Perhaps one day, you’ll come to believe that too. Especially when you look at your bank statement.’

I took my mobile out of my pocket and laid it on the table, next to the Yarygin.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever be rich, Chief,’ I said, ‘and somehow, I don’t think you will be either.’

And that’s when three armed men came into the room, followed by the Minister for State Security, Mikhail Tynaliev.